Chapelle Notre-Dame-de-Toutes-Vertus

Le Temple-de-Bretagne

A village name can sometimes tell, on its own, eight centuries of history. Originally the place was simply called Mauperthuis. Then, in the 12th century, the Templars set up here an annexe of their house of Sainte-Catherine in Nantes, without a hospital but with a chapel: Temple-Mauperthuis was born, a name it would keep until 1871, when the commune adopted its present name, Le Temple-de-Bretagne. The chapel of Notre-Dame-de-Toutes-Vertus, remodelled in the 15th century, descends directly from that Templar foundation: people still pray there today before a 17th-century polychrome statue of Saint Anne teaching the Virgin, and venerate a fountain reputed to be miraculous, beside which a stained-glass window of 1930 commemorates a miracle that took place in 1707. A cross known as the "Commander's Cross", dated to the 14th century and partly mutilated, recalls moreover the link with the Hospitaller order of Saint John of Jerusalem, which inherited the Templar property after 1312. Tucked away in the countryside between Nantes and the Loire estuary, this little rural chapel remains one of the rare Breton remains founded directly by the warrior monks.

Getting there : Village of Le Temple-de-Bretagne, 20 km north-west of Nantes, on the Sillon de Bretagne.

Opening times and access details are given as a guide only: check before you set out.

Ambient sound